Minor leaguer Montero, others climb depth chart as Cardinals shuffle 40-man roster
As the Cardinals continue to profess outward confidence that Matt Carpenter can prove his dreadful 2019 season to be an outlier, they took steps on Wednesday to secure the availability of one of their top prospects at his position.
Third baseman Elehuris Montero, the organization’s fourth best prospect according to MLB.com’s MLB Pipeline, was added to the team’s 40-man roster in order to protect him from selection by other teams in next month’s Rule 5 draft. Montero was one of three additions, along with right-handed pitchers Alvaro Seijas and Jake Woodford.
Righty reliever Dominic Leone, who is heading into his first year of arbitration eligibility and was therefore not expected to be tendered a 2020 contract by the club, was designated for assignment.
Having just turned 21 in August, Montero hit a mere .188 with a .235 on base percentage in 59 games for Double-A Springfield in 2019. He fractured the hamate bone in his left hand in May and spent a large part of the season seeking both health and the recovery of his swing in his first season at that level.
But Montero had 46 extra base hits in only 382 at-bats for Class-A Peoria in 2018, hitting .322 with a .910 OPS. Though there are questions about his defensive range at third base, he has a strong arm and will be penciled in at third for Triple-A Memphis heading in to the 2020 season.
Nolan Gorman, the slugging third baseman drafted in 2018’s first round, is set to succeed Montero at Memphis.
Leone, 28, entered the 2018 season as the Cardinals’ closer but battled injuries and ineffectiveness in his two seasons in St. Louis. He recorded a 5.15 ERA across 69 appearances and was left off the playoff roster this fall. He was not among those players traveling with the team as a potential injury replacement, which strongly suggested that he had fallen well down the organizational depth chart.
The Cardinals have 10 days to trade Leone, outright him to the minor leagues, or grant him his release. He was acquired from the Blue Jays along with fellow righty Conner Greene in the deal which saw Randal Grichuk shipped off to Toronto.
Kansas City claimed Greene off waivers from the Cardinals last November only to designate him for assignment on Wednesday as well.
Woodford, 23, was a surprise exclusion from the list of players called up by the Cardinals on Sept. 1. He was drafted in 2015’s supplemental first round and put up strong numbers in the minor leagues last year even as he was bedeviled by the explosion of offense which accompanied Triple-A’s switch to the high-octane baseballs used in the Major Leagues.
His 4.15 earned run average trailed only Daniel Ponce de Leon’s among Memphis’s regular starters, and he was the only Redbirds pitcher to throw more than 100 innings in 2019. Woodford figures to begin 2020 as the anchor of the Memphis rotation and the Cardinals’ proverbial “sixth starter,” pending any additions to the rotation from outside the organization this winter.
Seijas, 21, showed high-octane talent as a starter for Peoria and High-A Palm Beach in 2019. He was selected to the Midwest League All-Star Game as a representative of Peoria and made 24 starts across the two levels while keeping his earned run average below 3.00.
A native of Venezuela, Seijas was signed as a 17-year-old and first leaped onto radars in St. Louis as a serious prospect this season. He’s likely to begin 2020 at Double-A Springfield with an eye on advancing to Memphis before the end of the season.
Eligibility for the Rule 5 draft varies depending on the age of the player at signing and the way in which he was acquired. Montero and Seijas were both international free agents signed in 2015, while Woodford, though older, was drafted that same year.
The draft seeks to ensure that players in the minor leagues are receiving ample opportunity for advancement while simultaneously seeking to place the best possible talent on the field in the major leagues.
Of the three players added to the roster on Wednesday, Woodford figures to have the largest impact for the 2020 Cardinals. Seijas could advance quickly if the Cardinals determine he has the ability to act as a weapon in the bullpen, though his experience in the system is thus far exclusively as a starter.
Montero represents perhaps the highest upside of the three while also arguably one of the Cardinals’ strongest prospect candidates for a trade, should they seek to acquire major league talent through that route.
With Carpenter and Tommy Edman ensconced in the majors and Gorman pushing hard behind him, Montero represents the sort of hitting talent at a premium position that is likely to be sought by other teams in a trade package.